This brings back memories of very enjoyable discussions with my father. As a deep woods Minnesota deer hunter (and more successful at it than anyone I have met) he was a big proponent of the semi-auto. He believed that that as little time spent working the action while shooting at deer was the way to go. He believed the order of preference was semi-auto, pump, lever action, bolt action and single-shot at the very end.
So, I frequently teased him about his fifty year use of a single-shot. Because even though he used semi-autos, given they all jammed, to me, they were single-shots. And slow single-shots at that. I remember when Ruger first brought out their No. 3 single-shot I was enthralled and proposed to buy one either n .30/40 or .45/70. I proposed the idea that they would be lightweight, sweet handling pieces to slip through the brush with. My Dad was could not fathom my thinking of using a single-shot. I proposed I could work that Ruger action a lot quicker to get off a second shot than he could un-jam his Remington after the first shot to clear the cartridge stuck in the action.
To be fair to my Dad, usually his jammed rifle was not a big deal. He would shoot his deer, get it on the first shot and then clear the rifle jam. Not every time of course but darn frequent.
The advice given above - to buy neither the Winchester M100 or any variation of the Remington 740 series is advice I very much agree with.
My Dad started out with a Remington M740 in .280. This was in the later 1950's - I think the .280 cartridge just came out. I'm sure at the time he spent more than anyone in the family had spent on a rifle. He loved the cartridge and had great success with it but the rifle was a jammer. He suffered with it several years and then in about 1965 traded it for a Winchester M100 in .308 (another new rifle). And another jammer. He suffered with that for years and the next rifle to come along was a M7400 .30/06 carbine. He found that carbine particularly accurate and enjoyed the carbine length barrel in the woods. But it too, became a jammer and got worse over the years. The last rifle he bought was a vintage Savage 99 in .300. Finally! It never jammed on him but I recall he didn't like it. After a half century of semi-auto use (a.k.a. single-shot use) he just couldn't be comfortable with the idea that he had to work the lever (I guess with his semi-auto there was always the hope he could keep pulling the trigger).
It was with his M7400 we looked into investigating what was wrong and what could be done to fix it. I brought it to a professional gunsmith who went through it (cleaning gas port, chamber etc.) but that didn't change the rifle's stripes. Eventually we took it to another gunsmith who wasn't interested in taking our money as he knew he couldn't produce a result.
Going from distant memory, he said the rifles could not be repaired and showed us why. There is a rail inside the action (left side of the action) that if you slip your finger straight through the ejection port - to the other side - you can run your finger along this horizontal rail. Through the cycling of the action, this rail gets little dings and becomes rough. The rail cannot be replaced.
I recall taking a small piece of a very fine file and running it back and forth along this rail (just a bit) to smooth it out, and that helped some, temporarily.
In my own experience, the first deer rifle I used was a Remington 742. It was brand new. I used it a year or two (as a teenager) but early on, the vintage rifle bug bit me. Before my teens ended I was using a Remington M08 in .35 (circa 1906) and I still have it. That rifle is not a jammer. Most of my hunting from my teens forward was with lever rifles. A .32 spl. carbine got the nod for many years. That rifle was not a jammer nor were the other lever action rifles I used. I also used some bolt action rifles and never had one of them jam either.
People debate .30/06 vs. .270, barrel lengths and on and on but jammer vs. non-jammer, to my way of thinking, is a no-brainer. It is an extremely important variable. In conclusion, after 50 years experience with this topic, stay away from the M100 and the M740/742/7400.
Oh, and speaking from experience, no one mentioned Standard Arms but I have a Model G in .35 and it's a jammer!
Thanks for the trip down memory lane
